“Oh,” he said in a loud voice. He set the card on her desk and jabbed it repeatedly with his index finger. “This is going to be my favorite story.”
Okay. People didn’t usually get quite that jazzed about the farm family, so maybe she’d been right to select the card. Suppressing a smile, she made no comment.
“So, this girl looks to be around sixteen. Let’s call her Nancy.”
First character he’d named. She twisted in her chair.
He looked up, eyes glittering with excitement. “See these books? Nancy’s a good student. She’s on the honor roll, student council, the whole nine yards. But today she has to hurry with her homework because she’s getting ready for a meeting of the 4-H club.”
It wasn’t easy for to hide her surprise. The animated way Scourge recounted his story, the rich details—giving the characters names and ages—was highly unusual. She bit her lower lip and focused her eyes on the bookcase. “Mmm hmm.”
“The father’s a rich man, he’s done very very well for himself with that farm of his, but he’s strict and a tough disciplinarian. Nancy’s a good girl, though, so he doesn’t need to worry about her. She’s helpful and kind. Everyone loves her. She’s the type of girl who’ll go straight to heaven when she dies.”
“Mmm hmm.” Lots of people dying today.
Jumping up, he nearly spilled his water on the card but caught it at the last moment. “The mother, let’s call her Bonnie, doesn’t look happy. She’s got four kids, and her husband doesn’t pay attention to her anymore. He’s too busy with church and running the farm to take notice of his wife. Some days, Bonnie doesn’t even bother getting dressed.”
He’d named both the mother and the daughter. Highly unusual. Maybe he’d had an aunt named Bonnie, or a cousin named Nancy. You’d never know he was constructing a family from thin air. He talked as if he knew them well. Perhaps he’d imagined himself in a different, happier family than his own. Perhaps this wasn’t the first time he’d thought about Bonnie and Nancy. She checked her watch.
“You want an end?”
She nodded.
“Because they’re good people, they have nothing to worry about. The end.”
Scourge handed her the card, his face flushed and glowing. This being the final card, there was little risk of her contaminating the process any longer. She decided to venture a question. “What do you mean, because they’re good people, they have nothing to worry about?”
A wide smile on his face, he said, “I enjoyed this, Dr. Clancy. I really did.”
She tried again. “Why doesn’t this family need to worry?”
“Because they’re going to heaven—all of them.”
SEVENTEEN
Friday, August 9, 5:00 P.M.
Faith had come to the jail to convince Dante to recant—if he was in fact innocent—and she wasn’t leaving until she’d accomplished her mission.
“This place robs them of their dignity,” Sergeant Sheila Nesbitt remarked as she gave Faith a thorough pat down. “Try not to let it get to you.” Her low voice had the kind of soothing tone that could quiet a spooked animal. “Losing your dignity is worse than losing your freedom, so I never show my prisoners I notice. Act cool. That’s the best way if you can manage it.”
Faith felt a little of her own dignity drain away as the sergeant checked her for contraband. Teddy Torpedo Haynes had appointed Faith as his agent and managed to get her a private visit with Dante at the jail. The pat down was necessary for everyone’s safety, and it was no big deal compared to the searches the inmates endured.
“I’ll be right outside this door.” Nesbitt, a stately African-American woman with soft eyes and a hard body, gave Faith a look full of meaning.
“Thanks.” Faith wasn’t worried. After all, she’d been alone with Dante on many occasions with no security, and from what she could see, there was simply no way Dante could do her harm under these circumstances. Her gratitude to Sergeant Nesbitt was not so much for the protection she offered as for the kindness toward the prisoners reflected in her words. Prior to this, Faith’s image of jailers had been constructed mostly from television shows and B movies. Sergeant Sheila Nesbitt had dramatically altered Faith’s image for the better in the less than five minutes they’d spent together.
A loud clank sounded as the door latched shut behind Nesbitt. Faith placed a hand on her stomach and took a slow breath. A shiver ran down her spine as she surveyed the visitation room, where a sense of hopelessness gusted out the air-conditioning vents along with the too-cold air. The room was all concrete, painted the dirty gray of slush on a highway. Concrete walls. Concrete floors. Even the furniture was poured concrete. Nobody was going to pick up a table or chair and use it as a weapon in this place.
The click of her heels echoed through the room as she approached the picnic-style table in the back. No way Dante didn’t hear her coming, but he kept his head down, avoiding the moment when he’d have to meet her eyes. That gave her a chance to compose herself and blank her expression. Or as Nesbitt would put it, to regain her cool. She allowed herself one and only one glance at the chain that wrapped Dante’s midsection and looped through a metal ring bolted into the floor. As she sat down at the table across from him, she kept her head up, her back straight.
Dante was dressed in a gray jumpsuit that matched the color of the walls, floor, and furniture. His shackled hands rested on the tabletop, and they, too, were chained to a ring, this one bolted into the concrete bench.
“Thanks for agreeing to see me,” Faith said in as casual a tone as she could summon while her heart was withering in her chest. This place did indeed rob a person of his dignity.
“You’re wasting your time, Dr. Clancy.” Dante whipped his head up, raised his hands, and literally rattled his chains.
“I’ve got plenty of time, and I don’t consider you a waste.”
His eyes had grown dimmer, or maybe it was just all the gray that made them look so flat. Dark bags puffed out the area under his lids, and his skin drooped off his carved cheekbones. He must be refusing food altogether to lose noticeable weight in such a short time. Her chest grew heavy, and a lump formed in her throat. Beneath the table, her feet twisted. But she hadn’t come here to pity him. She’d come to empower him, to make him understand he could change his circumstance by telling the truth.
Keeping her tone all business, she asked, “Do you mind if I record our conversation?” Torpedo needed to know everything Dante said, verbatim.
“Suit yourself.” Dante’s forehead wrinkled. “I don’t mind talking to you. But don’t think you can convince me to withdraw my confession. I’m guilty as charged.”
Ah, so he knew exactly why she’d come. If this were a therapy session, she’d have time to help him reach a good decision on his own, slowly. But this wasn’t a therapy session, and there was simply no time to coddle him. It was entirely possible this was the only private interview she’d be allowed. “Then why did you agree to let Mr. Haynes enter a not-guilty plea for you at the arraignment?”
“Mr. Haynes?”
The startled look that passed over Dante’s face reminded Faith of a child awakening from a bad dream.
“Your attorney, Teddy Haynes.”
He jerked his hands, and his chains clanked together. “He’s not my attorney. I never agreed to anything.”
“Yes, Dante, you did. You told your brother you wanted a lawyer, and Luke hired Teddy Haynes.” Hopefully, the facts would pull him back to reality.
His eyes rolled back in his head. “Right. Teddy Haynes. Luke got me a lawyer.” He pushed his body as close to her as he was able. “You want to help me, don’t you, Dr. Clancy?”
Automatically, she reached out her hand to touch his arm, and when she did the cold metal of his shackles brushed her fingers, jolting her. “Yes. That’s why I’m here. I want to help.”
“Then tell my brother to back off.” His lips pulled at the corners, and he bared his teeth at her. He was putting on a show to scare her again.
She pulled her hand away. This time she wouldn’t be manipulated. “I’m afraid I can’t do that, and even if I tried, Luke would never walk away from you, Dante. He cares about you too much.”
“It’s all an act. He doesn’t give a damn about me. He just doesn’t want the Jericho name dragged through the dirt.”
“I don’t believe that, and besides, he’s all the family you’ve got.” She gave him a pointed look. “You should give him a chance.”
“Like you gave your family a chance?” Again with the manipulation.
She forced herself not to drop her eyes, but inwardly she cringed. Dante knew things about her—about her family. He’d told her so on the day he confessed. Her fingers went to her throat, but the necklace Grace had given her wasn’t there. No jewelry allowed. “I didn’t come here to talk about me. Maybe this is a waste of my time after all.” She came to her feet—time to get tough, for both their sakes.
“Wait. Don’t be mad.” A muscle beneath his eye started to twitch.
“Why shouldn’t I be mad?” She might be using her anger strategically, but she wasn’t faking it. It pissed her off that he’d invaded her privacy—and more importantly that he’d invaded the privacy of people she loved.
“I don’t want you to go.” His eyes turned glossy. He wasn’t faking either.
She hesitated, pretending to debate whether to stay or go. She turned her head from side to side before looking back at Dante. “Then answer this question. If you’re guilty as charged, why did you enter a not-guilty plea?”
His feet tip-tapped on the concrete floor. “I had to. If I had pleaded guilty, there wouldn’t have been a reason to try me. I want to go to trial. I want my day in court.”
“I don’t understand.”
“I want a jury to convict me, and I want a judge to confirm my guilt.” The way his voice cracked was heartbreakingly earnest.
Her hands formed tight balls. Oh God. She could actually see some sort of sick logic at work here. “Just to be clear. You want a judge and jury to publicly declare you a guilty man. Have I got that right?”
“Exactly.” He breathed a sigh, and his shoulders lowered.
“But Mr. Haynes says that there’s nothing in your confession beyond the information that was made public through newspaper accounts. Mr. Haynes thinks you might not have killed those people at all.”
“If I did kill them, I deserve to be locked up for the rest of my life.”
“If you killed them?”
“I killed them. I know I did. I told you, the police were closing in on me. They wouldn’t be after me if I hadn’t done something very, very bad.”
Classic paranoia. And this particular delusion of guilt was going to buy him a lethal injection if she didn’t find a way to get through to him. “Dante, do you or don’t you actually remember committing any of the murders to which you’ve confessed?”
“No.”
No!
“In your statement, you said you blew Nancy Aberdeen’s head off with a shotgun and then put a rosary in her hand. Did you do those things?” She firmed her voice, letting him know she’d be angry if he lied to her. It was clear he valued her approval, and if the only way to save his life was to withdraw that approval, she wouldn’t hesitate.
“No.”
“What about William Carmichael, and Linda Peabody and Ken Stoddard. Did you have anything to do with any of their deaths?”
“No.”
“Then why, Dante, why would you say you did?”
“Because I’m a guilty man. I killed my mother.”
She slapped her palm on the table, and the concrete bit back. “Your mother died in a car accident nearly twenty years ago.”
“Because of me!”
“Stop being childish. You weren’t even in the car.” She turned up the heat. Let him hear how ludicrous his assertion was. “You were eight years old, whad’ya do, cut the brakes?”
“She had too much to drink. She argued with my father . . . about me. She wished I was never born. That’s what she said.”
He was sobbing now.
Steeling her heart against his cries, she turned her back and took a step toward the door.
“Don’t go. Please don’t go,” he gasped.
“I’m done here.” Her throat closed, the cruel words nearly choking her, but she had no choice—not if she wanted to save an innocent man from going to prison . . . or worse.
“What do you want from me? Please don’t go. Just tell me what you want.”
Whirling to face him, she said, “I want you to agree to meet with Teddy Haynes, and I want you to tell him the truth.”
He shook his head. “I can’t. I need to be punished. And I have nowhere to go. No one to care if I live out the rest of my days in prison.”
“Dante. Listen to me very carefully. I’m done playing games with you. You think you’re being honorable, but you’re not. Your brother cares about you, and you’re hurting him by lying to the police. You’re hurting a lot of other people, too.” She had his attention so she kept going. “The minute you confessed, the police stopped looking for the Saint. So if the real Saint kills again while the police are wasting their time with you, you really will be guilty of murder.” She took a backward step toward the door.
“I’ll talk to my attorney. I swear. Just promise you’ll come to see me again.”
“After you keep your end of the bargain.”
His head bobbed excitedly. “Yes. Yes. I promise.”
She sought his gaze and held it. “And there’s one other thing, Dante. Texas wants to extradite you for the Saint’s crime there. And unlike New Mexico, Texas has a death penalty. So when Teddy Haynes comes by to see you, you better listen to what he says. You better start telling the truth—on the record—because if you don’t, I promise you, you won’t see me again.”
EIGHTEEN
Saturday, August 10, 11:00 A.M.
Five more days.
The light changed to green, and Scourge eased his foot on the gas, careful to maintain a speed well below the limit. The last thing he needed was to make another mistake. He pulled his lower lip between his teeth and sucked hard. He shouldn’t have sent those photos to Dr. Clancy, but he hadn’t been able to resist the urge to let her know that the Saint was still on the loose. He hadn’t been able to resist the urge to let her know he was watching her . . . and her friends. Despite the sweltering heat, his teeth chattered loudly as he considered what would happen if the boy told the police about the black-haired man he’d seen at Dr. Clancy’s house. This damn phobia had thrown his whole system off. He’d never have made a mistake like that in the past.
Concentrate on the task at hand.
Only five more days.
He needed his cure sooner than later. Right now, that was the only thing he should be thinking about. Scourge fixed his eyes on the road ahead. This was one of those rare occasions he’d decided to take his truck on a nonduty run. Generally, he preferred to walk, and when that wasn’t possible, he’d bite the bullet—the metaphor made him chuckle, easing the tension in his chest—and rake up cab fare. But with his cure just around the corner . . . literally . . . it was time to gas her up, air the tires, and take her for a spin to make sure she was in good working condition.
The cab of his Special Duty truck was cramped, unlike the large, open-roofed bed in the back, flanked only by wooden slats. The vehicle had previously been owned by a landscaper who used it to haul debris. There was room to breathe in the back, for the living, that is, and more than once, Scourge wished he could ride in that big open bed with the cargo instead of up here in this hot, closed space.
This was one of those times.
He’d rolled down the windows, but that offered little relief. Sweat leaked from his scalp into his eyes, and as soon as he blinked the sting away, more followed. In order to keep as much distance as possible between the roof of the truck and the top of his head, he kept his chin tucked to his chest. Reaching around, he rubbed the cramp out of the back of his neck and scratched the area where his collar rubbed against his skin.
Too much starch perhaps.
No.
No such thing as too much starch in a collar. His cotton shirt clung to his back, and he knew his perspiration had ruined its pristine appearance. Thank goodness Three Little Pigs was around the next turn.
He swerved around the corner. The act of driving didn’t faze him—quite the contrary. The feel of all that power roaring to life when he fired up his truck’s ignition, the ability to control that heavy mass of steel with a spin of the wheel gave him a charge. Too bad a convertible wasn’t in his budget. It was only this damn claustrophobic cab that made his head ache.
But he would manage. Understanding why closed spaces gave him the willies helped him to cope during the times when driving his truck was warranted. At school, he’d dreamt of white plastic walls, over him, under him, around him. He’d dreamt of peering through metal bars, his eyes wet, his throat hoarse from crying, and he’d wake up with his heart racing in his chest and the certainty he was going to die.
For a time, a young novitiate at Saint Catherine’s had taken him under her wing. Cecily snuck him sweets and books and once she even hugged him after a particularly vivid nightmare. On that night, he’d recited his dream to her in detail, then next morning, she’d taken him aside and explained that his dream wasn’t a dream at all.
It was a memory.
According to his case file, his mother used to keep him in a puppy crate whenever she drank, which was every night. She claimed this was for his own safety because she was prone to passing out and couldn’t properly supervise him. The kindhearted novitiate told him that misguided though it might have been, the crating was an act of love, and anyway, God expects us to forgive those who’ve wronged us, and he should pray to God to give him the strength to forgive his mother. But Scourge didn’t really think there was anything to forgive. Putting a child in a crate seemed logical enough to him.
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